Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus comprising a plurality of processor elements and a memory having a plurality of banks, and memory control thereof.
Description of the Related Art
In an information processing apparatus using a plurality of processor elements and a memory having a plurality of banks, when the plurality of processor elements access the memory, only one portion of each bank is accessible at once. Hence, when accesses occur simultaneously from a plurality of processor elements to a plurality of portions belonging to the same bank, the accesses cannot be processed simultaneously, and the process speed lowers. This situation is called “bank conflict.”
In general, bank conflict readily occurs in a parallel processing apparatus or system which has a relatively high throughput and performs access to a shared memory using a plurality of processor elements in parallel. An example of such a system is a robot system that executes a task such as picking a part from a part group on, for example, a production line of a factory. The robot system executes a process of recognizing the positions and orientations of parts stacked on a part box by an image process. If a number of image processes are parallelly performed for the recognition process, bank conflict may occur, resulting in a decrease in the process speed.
Various techniques have been proposed as memory control methods for suppressing bank conflict. For example, there has been proposed a technique of specifying the shape of a rendering target graphic, selecting an interleave pattern type adapted to the specified graphic shape, and controlling access to a memory in accordance with the pattern.
According to this technique, an interleave pattern to be used is selected at the time of access. In some cases, however, data cannot apply to any pattern. This occurs when, for example, access target data extends over a plurality of portions of a memory, and an optimum interleave pattern changes between the data. In this case, the above technique produces only a poor effect of reducing bank conflict.